It’s always hard to follow what’s going on inside Turkey but never more so than since Ergenekon. Turkey has faced four coups of one sort or another since its transition to democracy in 1946. But this is the first time those accused of an alleged coup have been put on trial: former generals and active duty officers have been charged with running a covert terrorist organisation — named Ergenekon — and inciting armed insurgency in order to bring down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

The Ergenekon enquiry began in June 2007 when 27 grenades and other explosives were found in the home of an ultranationalist military officer. (The word Ergenekon has since entered the Turkish vocabulary as an “ultranationalist covert network”.) For many observers, the continuing trial is more than a legal case against a gang: rather, they see it as a historic opportunity to confront the long existence of covert networks within the state. Some compare the case to the anti-corruption Clean Hands operation in Italy in the early 1990s which led to the demise of the First Republic. And the European Commission, in its last progress report on Turkey, described the trial as “an opportunity for Turkey to strengthen confidence in the proper functioning of its democratic institutions and the rule of law.”

Other Turks, however, invoke the legacy of McCarthyism because of the highly political nature of the investigation. They think the case is an opportunity for the AKP to eliminate its secular opponents, and they are concerned at the advances in authority which the government is securing at the expense of the military.

Turkey’s ‘deep state’

The tradition of secret political organisations within the state stretches back to the Ottoman empire. But Ergenekon is seen more as a remnant of the Gladio networks, those clandestine organisations stationed in Nato countries during the 1950s to counter a possible Soviet invasion. In 1990, the European parliament called on all its member states to dismantle such formations and investigate all related criminal activities. The Turkish parliament did nothing.

The Ergenekon investigation was no surprise. In 2006 police investigations revealed 14 illegal cell-type formations that included active-duty army and police members, as well as mafiosi. These ultranationalist networks shared a common rhetoric: “armed organisation is necessary to save the country from the threat of an Islamist government and EU imperialism”.

What distinguishes the Ergenekon operation from previous cases is the high profile of the members and the extent of the activities. The suspects represent a wide spectrum of elite figures, from senior military commanders and political leaders to columnists and academics. Among the crimes attributed to Ergenekon are the assassinations of the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the Italian Bishop Santoro, three Protestants in Malatya, as well as an armed assault on the State Council in which a senior judge was killed. The indictment claims all these activities are part of Ergenekon’s modus operandi, intended to sow such chaos and civil unrest that the Turkish army, as the guardian of the secular unitary regime, would have to intervene and overthrow the AKP government. This suspicion is not limited to Ergenekon alone. As Feroz Ahmad argues, “Many cynics had come to believe that the generals wanted to keep the country living in an atmosphere of terror and uncertainty” to justify their interventions.

Can the continuing trial contribute to the demilitarisation of Turkish politics and end the self-assigned guardianship of the army? There are some grounds for hope. Psychological barriers have collapsed and Turks have seen that soldiers are not immune to judicial sanctions. And the military, as an institution, has behaved responsibly and democratically, cooperating with the investigation (and of course denying any link to Ergenekon). Even a decade ago, Turkish governments required the army’s consent to stay in power. Now, the tables are turned, and it is the military who are demanding Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s support to deal with the constant charges against them in the media.

Most recently, this November, an investigation has been launched against Colonel Dursun Cicek, accused of preparing an “action plan to combat reactionism” to discredit the AKP and the religious Fethullah Gulen community and to play down the Ergenekon trial. Some newspaper columnists welcomed the investigation by civilian prosecutors as the end of the military supremacy over politics. That may be premature.

Structural problems require structural reforms. Without altering the 1982 constitution drafted by the then military junta, these developments cannot take more than single steps. According to Human Rights Watch, the Ergenekon case “gives Turkey a chance to make clear that it will hold security forces accountable for abuse, but that can only happen if the investigation follows the evidence wherever — and to whomever — it leads.” Does the AKP have the vision and determination to ensure that will happen?

Hakkı Taş

Hakkı Taş is a research assistant at Bilkent University, Ankara, and was visiting assistant in research at Yale University in 2008

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Hakkı Taş is a research assistant at Bilkent University, Ankara, and was visiting assistant in research at Yale University in 2008